


balancing act

by emavee



Series: Whumptober 2020 [9]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Somewhat Unreliable Narrator, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26908411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emavee/pseuds/emavee
Summary: “Take me instead,” he says, over and over. But it doesn’t work. It never works.Whumptober Day 9: "take me instead"
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne
Series: Whumptober 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948276
Comments: 8
Kudos: 142





	balancing act

**Author's Note:**

> so like earlier when i said i was hurt dick and damian a lot more,,, yeah this is what i was talking about

“Please,” Damian whispers. He can’t scream any longer. “Take me instead.”

This is his fault. They wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Damian. If Damian hadn’t been stupid enough,  _ weak enough, _ to get caught, then Grayson wouldn’t have had to come after him.

Every single one of Grayson’s screams are Damian’s fault. He might as well be holding the knife himself.

It’s been hours, maybe longer, maybe days—all Damian knows it that it feels as though years have passed since this all started. At first, Grayson hadn’t made a sound as they tortured him. Damian would expect nothing less; the man has been a vigilante since he was nine-years-old, had been  _ Batman _ , and as soft and foolish as Damian had thought his father’s first partner was when they first met, he now knows that Grayson is anything but weak. But quickly his stoic silence had become pained grunts, then whines, then full-on screams. 

He’s also long-since given up on trying to reassure Damian, doesn’t even seem to be aware of Damian’s presence anymore. Grayson is lost completely to a haze of pain.

The pleas fall from Damian’s mouth nonstop now. Not so long ago he would have been mortified by the very idea of begging with the enemy. Asking for mercy was weak. But Damian cannot stop. His whole world has narrowed down to panic and desperate attempts to save Grayson, wrists rubbed completely raw from tugging on the unyielding manacles. 

No matter how much he pleads, they do not touch a hair on Damian’s head, refuse to even acknowledge him.

Grayson is begging now, although his pleas sound nothing like Damian’s. He does not ask to switch places, does not even ask for them to stop, simply calls out for his mother and father, for Damian’s father and Batman alike, for Todd and Drake and Cain and Gordon and a few of his Titans friends. 

He never calls out for Damian. Damian does not know what to make of that. He tries not to dwell on it—there are matters of far greater importance at the moment. He will be able to ask Grayson later, once he is safe and healing.

Damian thinks he will curl up next to Grayson on the hospital cot. Father may try to tear him away to send him off to something as trivial as school, but Damian will not budge. He will not leave Grayson’s side until he is well enough to be back on his own two feet.

Surely it is only a matter of time before they are rescued. 

Damian cannot wrap his head around what they have done to make Grayson sound like this. He doesn’t have a particularly clear view of what they are doing though, just Grayson’s spasming outstretched limbs as he lays on the floor, his tormentors blocking Damian’s view.

Damian is almost glad. He has seen torture before, is quite familiar with it actually, but he does not want to see it done to Grayson. The screams alone, he is sure, will already haunt him for the rest of his life.

“I am here, Grayson,” he tries to reassure when it becomes clear that they will not change their target. “You will be okay. Just hold on.” 

He wishes Grayson would acknowledge him. He has never felt so helpless.

There is no more holding back his tears. Grayson can no longer scream, either his voice box is far too fried or his body is simply too weak. Damian cries and screams and rages for the both of them, alternating back and forth between hurling threats and pleading for Grayson to be spared of any more torment.

But he could talk until his lungs gave out and it would be as if he never made a sound. Hell, he could probably shout Batman’s identity and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference. He is completely and utterly helpless and Grayson is paying the price.

* * *

They leave. They finally leave, and the room is finally silent. It should be a blessed sound, finally free of Grayson’s screams, but instead it is crushing. There is  _ nothing. _ Grayson is silent. Grayson, who is light and love and passion and brilliance and movement and life, is completely and utterly still and silent. 

There is no hiss of breath between his teeth, no labored rise and fall of his chest.

They have left Damian here with the corpse of his brother.

He didn’t even get to say goodbye.

Damian crawls as far as the chains around his wrists will allow him to go. Dick is still just out of reach. He heaves and stretches, tugging at the chains in desperation until he manages to grab at the tips of Dick’s fingers. He latches on with ferocity, pulling his brother toward him. For a single desperate moment he feels horribly guilty for pulling on Dick’s broken arm and exacerbating the mangled beds of his torn-out fingernails, but then he remembers. 

Perhaps eventually he will be able to find some solace in the fact that his brother no longer feels pain, but right now Damian horribly,  _ selfishly _ would rather Dick be hurting, so long as he’s alive. For a split second Damian misses the screams, but immediately shoves the thought away in disgust, loathing himself even more for even thinking such a thing. 

He does not want his brother to hurt, but he also does not want his brother to be dead. He wishes so desperately that he had done something  _ anything _ differently to not end up here.

This is his fault. This is all his fault. He sobs out as much to the stale, empty air. He would give anything to hear Dick’s voice, to hear him whisper, gentle and soothing, “Oh, Damian, of course it’s not your fault.” And then he would surely scoop Damian up into a hug and swipe away his tears and Damian would have to pretend to protest lest his reputation be ruined.

Of course Dick doesn’t say any of that. It would be a lie anyhow.

Damian wants to go home. He wants  _ Dick _ to go home.

Damian pulls Dick’s body practically into his lap. Gingerly and almost reverently, his shaking hands turn his big brother’s face towards him. 

Cloudy blue eyes don’t quite meet Damian’s, always looking slightly too high and left no matter how Damian twists and tries to make his brother see him. 

“Grayson!” he screams. Dick does this, likes to pretend to still be asleep just to get on Damian’s nerves because he never ceased to be a child. “Grayson, it’s not funny anymore. You have to get up. Please. You—You are scaring me.”

Of course there is no answer. Dick is gone. Damian is shaking violently.

“Grayson,” he whimpers, shaking his shoulder. “Grayson, please. Please, you cannot leave me. I do not want to be alone. Please.”

Damian leans over his brother, pressing their foreheads together tightly and cradling the sides of Dick’s face. He can smell hints of Dick’s shampoo beneath the stench of blood. Coconut scented. He wants to throw up. 

“I love you,” he says, pouring everything he is into the words. Every moment that he thought it, felt it, but never said it.  _ He’s never said it. _ Did Dick die not knowing Damian loved him? Grayson said it often, freely, made Damian truly believe it. And yet Damian never once said it back.

Damian has never loathed himself more. 

“Please,” he whispers, still bent over Dick’s still form. “Take me instead. You can have me, just let him live. Take me instead and  _ give him back. _ ”

Dick would kill him himself if he knew Damian was trying to make such a trade, but Damian doesn’t care. Dick doesn’t  _ understand _ that Damian can’t live without him, not again. He doesn’t know how much Damian needs him, how much Damian loves him. Damian would give himself up in a heartbeat to save Dick.

But no one is coming to trade their lives. Of course they aren’t—it would not be an even exchange. Dick was the best person Damian has ever met. The first person to care about him, to see past who his mother and grandfather made him to be, to actually want to be around him. The first person to ever love him, and to show him what love is actually supposed to be. 

Dick Grayson was  _ good, _ all the way down to his core, everything Damian is not. Damian got him killed, tortured to death, all because he was too weak and useless and helpless to stop it. 

It is not fair that Damian should live while Dick is dead; Damian is not worth even half of Dick Grayson. 


End file.
